My niece sent me a text the other day that said, ‘Thanks auntie.’
Auntie. It’s a title that I carry with such pride. One of the greatest joys in my life is being able to help mold the character of my nieces and nephews. Each of us hold different titles. From mother to father, sister, brother, son, daughter, friend, boss, co-worker, neighbor, etc. And each of those titles has meaning and significance.
When I traveled with NET Ministries, I was opened to a whole new approach to living my life as a Catholic. Before NET, I would faithfully attend Mass on Sunday, CCD on Wednesday and pray before meals. I was wholeheartedly Christian, reading scripture, praying regularly and sharing the gospel with others. My ignorance to my Catholic roots was pressing and during NET I learned that the Catholic faith encompassed so much more than just prayers before meals. Most of the teachings and prayers were so new to me, it was like learning a new prayer language, one in which I didn’t embrace right away and took some time to fumble my way through.
Praying a litany was a strange thing to me. So when my NET Team would find ourselves with a Marian hymn and the Litany of Loreto in hand, I would be confused. Why does Mary hold so many titles? Why is she a mirror of justice? How is she the refuge of sinners?
Mary was one of those teachings that I didn’t embrace right away. My attitude was that she wasn’t Jesus, so why bother? Only Jesus can heal. Only Jesus can forgive. Only Jesus can save me.
But thankfully all of that changed. I grew to the understanding that Mary does not hold these titles because she asked for glory or recognition. She doesn’t hold these titles because she climbed her way up the corporate ladder. Mary’s titles, her vast and detailed titles, stem from God’s grace in her life and her cooperation with that grace. We hold her in such high honor because He does. And it is He who bestows these titles on her.
Each title has significance and meaning. Now when I pray a litany to Mary, I find myself choosing one of the titles to focus on for that week. Some of my favorites are Mary: Queen of Prophets, Gate of Heaven, Morning Star, Mystical Rose, Virgin most Venerable, Mother of Divine Grace, Comforter of the Afflicted, and Ark of the Covenant.
Mary is a great model to all of us, but perhaps and more importantly, she truly is all of the titles that have been bestowed upon her. What a great gift this is to the Church.
Each of us is given titles though my titles are vastly different than Mary’s. I imagine them to be something like Molly: Queen of complaining, Sister that is selfish, Daughter most disrespectful, Virgin most impatient.
I am a sinner.
But a sinner with hope and perseverance. I pray that I may cooperate with God’s grace to become worthy of the titles He has bestowed on me: Daughter. Sister. Friend. Campus Minister. Neighbor. Mentor. And perhaps my favorite, Auntie. And with God’s grace, hopefully one day: Saint.
What is one of your favorite Marian titles? Why?
2 thoughts on “Mary and Litanies and Titles, Oh My!”
As a Catholic who grew up in a majority-Jewish community (as did my father before me — I joke about being a third-generation Shabbos Goy, but it’s true!), I’ve always loved litanies. One of the elements of worship that I appreciated most of Jewish worship when attending services for friends’ Bar/Bat Mitzvahs or sitting shiva with their families was the many titles that the Torah and the Talmud gave to God (as a necessity for not being allowed to speak His name), titles that reflected His various roles and connections to His people on Earth. Since Catholicism has endeavored over the centuries to retain much of the priestly and liturgical character of our Jewish forebears, the titles that we give to Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and other sanctified figures follow directly in that same tradition of the Names of God — something that I love as both a means of applying worship through symbol (and so connecting with the personage via that trait) and connecting with our history as a faith community (and some of us as a personal community).
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